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The Vehicle Recycling Partnership (VRP) initiated feasibility studies to evaluate the use of automated separation processes to recover plastics and polyurethane (PU) foams from shredder residue. One of the prevailing issues impeding the commercial success of these processes is contamination of the shredder materials. The contaminants include dirt, oils, glass, metal fines, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and heavy metals. The presence of PCBs and heavy metals was determined in a number of mixed plastics and PU foam samples separated using an automated separation process. An aqueous cleaning approach was investigated using various commercial surfactants to determine their effectiveness for removing oils, PCBs, and heavy metals. Mass balances of processed and cleaned materials were calculated to determine the cleaning efficiencies of the various surfactants.

Tons of shredder residue (SR), a complex mixture of plastics, foams, rubber, metals, and glass, are generated each year as a by-product from the recycling of obsolete vehicles. The Vehicle Recycling Partnership (VRP), along with our CRADA partners, is investigating ways to enable the optimum recovery and recycling of these materials. This study investigates the feasibility of recycling (PU) foam using a new chemical process by glycolysing [1, 2] two types of polyurethane (PU) foams, “dirty” and “clean”, which were recovered from SR via an industrial scale process specifically designed to separate PU foams from SR [3, 4]. In stage one of this process, the polyurethane foam is subjected to glycolysis, followed by filtration of the liquid glycolyzed product. In stage two, the glycolyzed products are used as initiators in reaction with propylene oxide to prepare novel polyurethane polyols.

Shredder residue is a complex mix of many different materials that includes plastics, rubber, polyurethane (PU) foams, glass, metals and other materials such as rocks and dirt. The metal recyclers create this shredder residue mix as part of a recycling process to recover metals. The actual input stream for metal recycling is end-of-life automobiles, white goods and a variety of other metal-intensive parts including industrial scrap waste. This shredder residue is currently landfilled, and the European Union has implemented laws to reduce the amount of shredder residue from automobiles that can go into landfills. The Vehicle Recycling Partnership (VRP) is working with different collaborators to evaluate different technologies, including automated plastic recovery, as a means to reduce the amount of plastics that go to landfill in shredder residue.